The present invention relates to liquid-dispensing container constructions and supports therefore, and in particular to container constructions for mounting a dispensing container in an inverted position within a bath or shower for dispensing a desired amount of liquid such as shampoo, cream rinse, body wash, or the like.
People normally keep a number of containers of different types in the shower of their bathroom, typically containing shampoo, hair conditioner, soaps or the like. Most of these bottles are too big to put on the built in shelves, which are typically designed for a bar of soap or an object of that size. Aftermarket shelves are available, but they take up space and they introduce yet another surface that needs to be cleaned. What is really needed is a way to get the containers to hang on a wall where they would be easily accessible during the bath/shower.
One solution available is to mount an automatic liquid dispenser on the wall. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,166,553, 5,992,698 and 6,041,971. This gives the user easy access to the products during showering, and it eliminates some of the clutter of bottles. However, it also introduces a few problems for both the user and the manufacturers. The automatic dispenser itself has to be permanently fixed to the wall with screws or glue to work properly. Fixing anything with screws to a bathroom wall is less than ideal and sometimes impossible, and glue good enough to hold a dispenser on a tile or glass wall will make it hard to replace or remove the unit at a later stage. If one plans ahead while building a bathroom, one can flush mount a dispenser in the wall (See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,340), but it is very unlikely that this ever will be a large market. Another problem with the dispenser solution is that it leaves one with two choices when the dispenser needs to be refilled. Either the user has to fill the dispenser manually by pouring the contents from another container (See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,340). This filling operation tends to be time-consuming and messy. Alternatively, an inner cartridge can be replaced. (See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,992,698). In the latter case, the manufacturer will lock itself to a certain design and size of the cartridge, leaving the marketing department little to work with to make it stand out on the grocery store shelf without adding packaging. Using an automatic dispenser also limits the number of products one can have, unless the unit is made very big or several of the units are used.
Another solution is to make a hanger that accommodates bottles of different designs and sizes. The main problem is that these mechanisms get overly complicated (See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,366,360) and one will still need some means of attachment to the wall.
One can also make a device that hangs from the plumbing fixtures in the shower, like the pipe of the shower stall, curtain rod or bar of soap dish (See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,580). This can also be an integrated design feature of the bottle itself (See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,728,006 or 5,479,497), but this structure will generally limit the number of different products one can fit the shower, before having to resort to using the shower floor or shelves. In many cases, it will not be accessible to short users.
Yet another solution is to make an all-in-one product with an automatic dispenser with suction cups on one side. (See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,850,945 or 6,343,712). This may work for small dispensers, provided that the suction cups are fitted properly. In any case, this will add considerable cost to the packaging and production of the product.
The last group of prior art tries to solve the problem by using suction cups. U.S. Pat. No. 3,071,886 discloses a device with several suction cups that can accommodate any container with one relative flat side. The problem with suction cups is that they require a certain force to release the container, and in order to be strong enough to make a 700 gram bottle hang for days/weeks, the force needed to release the container will be considerable. U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,884 tries to solve this by using two parts. A base with a suction cup attaches to the wall, and an adapter with a suction cup holding the bottle. This design has two obvious flaws. First of all, suction cups will not be able to hold a typical shampoo or hair conditioner bottle, since the walls of the bottle are not flat or rigid enough to keep the vacuum needed to make the suction cup hold the bottle. Secondly, a better docking system is needed to connect the two parts. The latter could be improved, but the first flaw would seriously limit what kind of bottles this system could accommodate. U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,490 uses another approach with using a hanger of a web of polypropylene. Preinstalled on bottles in the stores this might work, but it still would require special packaging and the suction cup would need to be very large to be able to hold a typical xe2x80x9cfamily sizexe2x80x9d bottle.
Thus there remains the problem of providing a convenient way to suspend bottles of liquid soap, shampoo, hair conditioner, and other bathing products from a wall of a shower or tub enclosure without using permanent fixtures, cements, adhesives or other materials that cannot be easily removed from the wall, while still providing all the support necessary for a full bottle of the bathing product.
The present invention overcomes this problem by using a container support that includes a suction disc with a lever/handle to reduce the air pressure between the disc and the surface, and a customized bottle to slide onto the handle of this suction cup. With the increased vacuum, a single suction disc of a relatively small diameter can be used to hold a heavy container, compared to using single-piece suction cups.
The suction disc can easily, and with little force, be removed to permit cleaning of the wall of the shower, or to reposition the container support to another location. The suction disc with the lever is more expensive to produce than single-piece suction cups, but they are still relatively cheap and are reusable.
The containers need to be designed to be able xe2x80x9cto dockxe2x80x9d on the handle. The container can have a generally tubular body having a closed bottom and an open top through which any contents of the container can be dispensed. A closure having any of a variety of designs can be secured to the open top, such as are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,408,702; 4,805,790; 5,924,605; 6,062,441; or 6,394,315. The generally tubular body can include a pocket having at least one edge adapted to cooperate with the handle of the support to hold the container. The lateral extent of the pocket should be sufficient to make the docking operation very easy even when one""s eyes are closed. The manufacturer can choose whether to make the container hang with the neck up or down. Depending on the current design of the bottle, this may or may not introduce moving parts to the mould used to form the container. Once designed and the modified moulds are made, this system should not add considerable production costs to the bottles.
The docking feature of the bottle will give the manufacturer a unique selling point in the marketing of their product. If the manufacturer has a line of products, containers for all the products can be made to fit the same suction disc handle. The manufacturer can also provide a compatible adapter made of a single plastic part that can be permanently fixed to the wall. Some users may want this in other parts of the bathroom or other rooms, where suction cups cannot be mounted. (Wood, painted dry walls etc.)
Since the modification of the bottle can be made without severely changing the original design of the bottle, the marketing efforts in the original design are not lost. When the bottle hangs on the wall, the suction disc is barely visible, and the design of the bottle is very visible to the user, at least more so than when a container is standing on the floor, thus reducing the likelihood of selecting the wrong container for use at some point during a shower.
The shape of the handle can made in a shape that allows the bottle to swing from side to side, which might be preferable to minimize the stress on the bottle if the user accidentally should collide with the bottle during showering. If the bottle is an automatic dispenser, one might want to the bottle to remain in a fixed position, and use another shape of the handle.
All in all, the invention solves one very common problem for the user, and provides the manufacturer with a marketing advantage in a market that today relies heavily on branding and advertising. Additional features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from a consideration of the following description of preferred embodiments taken together with the accompanying drawings illustrating the best mode of the invention as presently conceived.